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Yeah streams and lets plays are a really terrible way to consume games. They're best used for games you've already played and want to see a YouTuber's reaction to or how they handle it.
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Jul 5, 2020 19:08
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Necrothatcher posted:And that's antithetical to what Death Stranding should be. It's largely a game about silence and introspection. For a game about silence, there is also certainly a lot of music and people talking at you.
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Jul 5, 2020 19:08
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Cardiovorax posted:But you just said the opposite thing? Personally, I don't really agree. Death Stranding is very strongly about a sense of community integration at a remove, whether through likes and seeing other people's buildings in-game or seeing someone play it at a remove. the fact that you so obviously don't get Death Stranding is kind of proving my point
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Jul 5, 2020 19:09
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Necrothatcher posted:the fact that you so obviously don't get Death Stranding is kind of proving my point
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Jul 5, 2020 19:10
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Necrothatcher posted:Video games stories are designed around interactivity and developers use gameplay to communicate important aspects of their narrative, emotional heft and mood. Necrothatcher posted:A big part of Death Stranding's ambience and mood is isolation from humanity and being alone (save for BB) in vast scenery and forging through it. Much of the impact of the game comes from forming connections with other players. Sure, and I completely understand and accept that you miss the experience of playing the game by virtue of not having played it - that seems pretty self-evident, honestly. But what's something that I won't understand about Death Stranding's story as a result of not having played the game?
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Jul 5, 2020 19:11
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Cardiovorax posted:Yeah, not saying it isn't different, but what Necrothather is saying is just a really extreme stance to take, in my opinion. I totally agree with his opinion, it's not an extreme stance to say that playing a game makes you more qualified to critique it.
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Jul 5, 2020 19:11
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Perfectly Safe posted:Watching a marathon runner is very much like watching gameplay though. What you're saying is more like "you can't possibly understand the answer to the question 'why are you running this marathon?' unless you're the person who asked the question". If anything, I'd compare it to reading the script of a movie as compared to watching it. There's emotional nuance you won't get that way because it's presented visually, but that doesn't mean you can't understand what is happening or what it means.
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Jul 5, 2020 19:16
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Perfectly Safe posted:Sure, and I completely understand and accept that you miss the experience of playing the game by virtue of not having played it - that seems pretty self-evident, honestly. But what's something that I won't understand about Death Stranding's story as a result of not having played the game? It depends what you mean by 'understand'. Will you know the events of the story? Sure. Will you have developed the empathy and identification with Sam required for that story to land as intended? Nope. Gettin' off topic with DS talk, but the exact same thing applies to Abby and TLOU2.
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Jul 5, 2020 19:17
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The media of videogames does demand that the player interacts personally with the story. Games are not films. They weren't designed to be viewed as films. So if you're not playing them then no, you won't fully 'get' it.
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Jul 5, 2020 19:23
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There's a huge difference between watching games being played and actually playing them yourself I.E. my bloody palms after spinning the stick playing Mario Party 3.
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Jul 5, 2020 19:31
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Necrothatcher posted:It depends what you mean by 'understand'. Will you know the events of the story? Sure. Will you have developed the empathy and identification with Sam required for that story to land as intended? Nope. Here's the thing. I understood TLOU2 well enough from the game. I understand it better - much, much better - now that I've discussed it with other people and have understood how they experienced it. It's been really interesting listening to reviewers and what they think as well. The disadvantage of being the player with a game like TLOU2 is that the character is not you. It's easy to forget that, and people get a bit aerated at certain points because the character makes a decision that they don't like. Some very sensible people have said "that should be a player choice" because they've not liked the choice the character makes. It took me a fair bit of reflection away from the game to really get comfortable why Ellie has to go to Santa Barbara, for example. I was, at the time I was playing, very annoyed with the game. My point is that the player's perspective is not the only one of any importance in understanding a story like this. I think this game requires at least that you talk about it in order to get the most out of it. Having some distance from the game might be useful in understanding the story. If people are full of poo poo then they're full of poo poo; I've encountered plenty of people who have played the game and have some really crass opinions, and people who watched it who have decent insight into the story. My suggestion would be to regard having played or not as immaterial - either people are saying something valuable and interesting or they're not.
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Jul 5, 2020 19:41
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Perfectly Safe posted:Yeah, ok, I'm not sure I agree with your empathy argument, at least as a general comment about how you feel about the central character if you're not actually playing the game, but it is what it is. You played the game first and then got greater insight afterward from discussing it with people, which is fine, I just take issue with people watching someone else play a game and then feel as though they're able to fairly critique it. I don't think that's too controversial, honestly.
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Jul 5, 2020 19:47
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HampHamp posted:You played the game first and then got greater insight afterward from discussing it with people, which is fine, I just take issue with people watching someone else play a game and then feel as though they're able to fairly critique it. I don't think that's too controversial, honestly. Sure, but this frequently sounds a lot more like "they haven't earned the right to talk about the game that I paid money for" than "their opinion is clearly missing critical information because they've not played the game".
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Jul 5, 2020 20:03
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Perfectly Safe posted:Sure, but this frequently sounds a lot more like "they haven't earned the right to talk about the game that I paid money for" than "their opinion is clearly missing critical information because they've not played the game". Yeah i see what you mean. Normally I'd agree, and it's never even really been a thing I've considered much, but the vitriol around this game has made everything feel as if it has more of an agenda.
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Jul 5, 2020 20:08
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Perfectly Safe posted:Yeah, this was one of what I think was one of the little inconsistencies in the story. Abby meets Joel by chance and he and Tommy are very clearly decent people who put themselves at risk to help a stranger. We find out later that Abby understands the circumstances of her father's death - that Joel found out just before Ellie was to go under the knife that the procedure was going to kill her, went in to rescue her, and her father got in the way. It's literally brought up multiple times in Abby's storyline (and also by people Ellie encounters) that the Fireflies blame Joel for no cure/destroying any hope for humanity (amongst fireflies at least) and the dissolution of the Fireflies. Those are pretty big reasons to hate Joel.
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Jul 5, 2020 20:09
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Perfectly Safe posted:Sure, but this frequently sounds a lot more like "they haven't earned the right to talk about the game that I paid money for" than "their opinion is clearly missing critical information because they've not played the game".
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Jul 5, 2020 20:16
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FiftySeven posted:I totally disagree. When you are playing as Abby and trying to progress through the game, you will naturally feel a sense of self preservation as you live and die as the character. Whether you like it or not, you will largely be trying to make sure that she survives, even if you dont like her. That is part of the process that brings you to empathise with the character and it would be a feeling that is totally absent from just watching a LP. Its the same as when when you are crouched behind cover, and someone is about to discover you and you have that momentary rush of adrenaline as you are in those few exposed seconds where someone else might see you and things go to poo poo. Well, no, and you're running into the same fallacy that Spec Ops: The Line was rightly criticized for. I want to keep playing the game and shooting and stabbing people. I could care less about the character and "making sure she survives" because, well, the only option left is to shut off the console at that point, which nobody wants to do.
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Jul 5, 2020 20:20
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HampHamp posted:Yeah i see what you mean. Normally I'd agree, and it's never even really been a thing I've considered much, but the vitriol around this game has made everything feel as if it has more of an agenda. Oh sure, there are the people who have no interest in the game beyond wanting to tank it for all the SJWing that it does, but they haven't watched 25-30 hours of LPs. They've generally got a copy of abbyisapsychopath.txt. I mean, you don't need to tell me. I've been on Reddit. SpitefulHammer posted:It's literally brought up multiple times in Abby's storyline (and also by people Ellie encounters) that the Fireflies blame Joel for no cure/destroying any hope for humanity (amongst fireflies at least) and the dissolution of the Fireflies. Those are pretty big reasons to hate Joel. As I said, they have every reason to want revenge on Joel. But beating someone to death is something you do to someone who really deserves to suffer. Joel did what he did (under circumstances so awful they had to be contrived) to save his surrogate daughter, and Abby knows that. The guy who you beat to death is the guy who decided to gently caress everybody up because he didn't get a big enough reward, not the guy who rescues the teenage girl who doesn't even know she's on the surgeon's table.
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Jul 5, 2020 20:25
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Taintrunner posted:The main problem with The Last of Us 2 is that the entire series is racist as gently caress. The Black family in TLOU1, the Asian siblings in TLOU2, Manny being a spicy sexpot Latino stereotype, not to mention the other minority characters that exist only to be tortured or die horribly for the sole purpose of motivating the cis white women player characters - the only reason people of color exist in The Last of Us is to be misery porn motivators for the white player characters. It's incredibly disturbing and quiet frankly, with everything going on, I'm shocked it hasn't been more openly condemned.  And if you bring it up in most circles, people tend to ignore it or brush it off, but it's a consistent theme at this point and I'm amazed the only people willing to discuss it are minority players.
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Jul 5, 2020 21:18
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This game is pretty good, but I just wanna say, for gently caress's sake video games stop making me button mash to get out of grapples, I'm an old man Edit : Also Ellie zip up your backpack, kids these days ZaronYeras fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Jul 5, 2020 |
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Jul 5, 2020 21:47
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ZaronYeras posted:This game is pretty good, but I just wanna say, for gently caress's sake video games stop making me button mash to get out of grapples, I'm an old man Check the accessabiliy options.
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Jul 5, 2020 21:48
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stev posted:Check the accessabiliy options. Oh nice, yeah I see it now. I thought it would be under combat accesssibility but it's under alternate controls.
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Jul 5, 2020 22:03
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Kawabata posted:the only reply I got here is "did you actually play the game" and I'd rather not New thread title
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Jul 5, 2020 22:18
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My memory of TLOU is probably a little bit hazy, but for the Joel Was Right people, why exactly did Joel kill Marlene? I feel like I must be missing something because nobody seems to talk about it but he just straight up kills Ellie's surrogate mother because he is scared that she will track them down and tell Ellie the truth right?
Gentleman Baller fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Jul 5, 2020 |
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Jul 5, 2020 23:00
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"You'd just come after her."
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Jul 5, 2020 23:02
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In It For The Tank posted:"You'd just come after her." And tell her the truth and ask her what she would wants to do, right? Or do I have Marlene all wrong?
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Jul 5, 2020 23:14
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Perfectly Safe posted:Oh sure, there are the people who have no interest in the game beyond wanting to tank it for all the SJWing that it does, but they haven't watched 25-30 hours of LPs. They've generally got a copy of abbyisapsychopath.txt. “Abby knows that” is a stretch, she just knows that the guy will be angry due to the girl, but thinks the cure will help anyway. And “Ellie knows that” with Abby. Like when the player finds out, Ellie specifically says she thought it was something like that in the back of her mind. She was mad at Joel and thought he did the wrong thing (albeit maybe coming round to trying to forgive him) and she knew these people were wronged by him. It’s almost like it’s a parallel on purpose
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Jul 5, 2020 23:21
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Taintrunner posted:The main problem with The Last of Us 2 is that the entire series is racist as gently caress. The Black family in TLOU1, the Asian siblings in TLOU2, Manny being a spicy sexpot Latino stereotype, not to mention the other minority characters that exist only to be tortured or die horribly for the sole purpose of motivating the cis white women player characters - the only reason people of color exist in The Last of Us is to be misery porn motivators for the white player characters. It's incredibly disturbing and quiet frankly, with everything going on, I'm shocked it hasn't been more openly condemned. Apart from every character existing for misery porn in tlou2 what was racist about the black family or yara/ lev? Legitimately asking. I don’t get what you mean with yara and lev (that they are “devoted Asian family” stereotype? I read it more as the cult thing but that’s all I can see) and I don’t remember the events of the first one other than meeting that family and I think them dying Manny i feel that’s an unfair reading but I’m a white guy so I’ll defer to people of colour on that one. I just thought he was a bit of a player, but like he’s not some super ripped dude he’s a pudgy anime nerd so almost took it as “how does this guy pull chicks at all?”
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Jul 5, 2020 23:26
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Gentleman Baller posted:And tell her the truth and ask her what she would wants to do, right? Or do I have Marlene all wrong? It's more like "You'd just come after her (and cut her brain out like you just tried to)". Marlene didn't ask Ellie in the first place, why would she do it a second time. What Ellie wanted never mattered except to Ellie, the Fireflies have done far worse for far less than kill one innocent child to save humanity.
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Jul 5, 2020 23:50
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I'm not white and I like these games but the non white characters essentially are all in service of being foils for the white characters e.g. the black brothers in TLOU1 are a warning of what could happen to Joel and Ellie, Yara and Lev exist for Abby's redemption etc
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Jul 5, 2020 23:51
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ZaronYeras posted:This game is pretty good, but I just wanna say, for gently caress's sake video games stop making me button mash to get out of grapples, I'm an old man It's kinda surprising, in such a detailed game, they only have one single backpack model that's used throughout the game (it's open because that's where the arrows stick out once you get the bow) ymgve fucked around with this message at 00:29 on Jul 6, 2020 |
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Jul 6, 2020 00:19
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Perfectly Safe posted:As I said, they have every reason to want revenge on Joel. But beating someone to death is something you do to someone who really deserves to suffer. Joel did what he did (under circumstances so awful they had to be contrived) to save his surrogate daughter, and Abby knows that. The guy who you beat to death is the guy who decided to gently caress everybody up because he didn't get a big enough reward, not the guy who rescues the teenage girl who doesn't even know she's on the surgeon's table. He slit her father’s throat because he was trying to save the world. He doomed all of mankind but more to the point he has killed your father, whom you idolized and adored. None of Abby’s behavior is suspect.
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Jul 6, 2020 00:19
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In the world's eyes anyway, there's no way the fireflies plan would have worked, that group was incompetent. The most successful thing they did was let Abby's father get murdered, as it produced basically a supersoldier
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Jul 6, 2020 00:49
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teacup posted:“Abby knows that” is a stretch, she just knows that the guy will be angry due to the girl, but thinks the cure will help anyway. She knows plenty. Fine, she doesn't literally know that Joel at that point has basically taken her as his daughter, but it's abundantly clear from what is said and what then happened that he cares about her and therefore goes to rescue her. She certainly should be able to connect the dots - it's not like she's not had time to think about it. The parallel doesn't really extend very far, does it? Joel shot (or stabbed) her father while rescuing a teenager. It wasn't a prolonged beating. They shouldn't have put that awful hospital cutscene in. Bust Rodd posted:He slit her father’s throat because he was trying to save the world. He doomed all of mankind but more to the point he has killed your father, whom you idolized and adored. None of Abby’s behavior is suspect. No, he killed her father because he was going to kill Ellie. What, you think that Joel killed her father to stop him from developing a cure? That he'd have done it if he hadn't been about to kill Ellie? No, I don't think even Abby would draw the conclusion that Joel killed her father "because he was trying to save the world". And again, having beef with Joel about the impact of what he did certainly translates to revenge. But you've really got to think that someone's a terrible human being to think that they deserve to be beaten to death. "That child's guardian rescued the child at enormous cost which, actually, we're not even sure they were aware of, there's no possible way I can fathom how that could happen unless the person's a monster who deserves more than revenge - they deserve a slow, agonizing death". They shouldn't have put that awful hospital cutscene in.
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Jul 6, 2020 00:56
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^^my point is that Abby doesn’t need any reason past “Joel killed my dad” to do what she did. That’s enough for MANY people. One thing I really loved about Abby’s design her braid. Wearing your hair long seems uncommon, and like her huge arms it reflects discipline. Then they bait and switch you with it at the pillars and a shiver runs down your spine when you realize... goddam the Pillars is such an amazing sequence.
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Jul 6, 2020 00:58
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Fallen Hamprince posted:It's more like "You'd just come after her (and cut her brain out like you just tried to)". Marlene didn't ask Ellie in the first place, why would she do it a second time. What Ellie wanted never mattered except to Ellie, the Fireflies have done far worse for far less than kill one innocent child to save humanity. When Joel was locked up, Marlene specifically told Joel she wanted to ask Ellie, right? But Ellie was already unconscious and it was out of her hands. And what Ellie wanted seemed to matter to Marlene more than Joel. In the scene where he kills her she points out that they both know what she wants. I dont think Joels decision has anything to do with consent or what Ellie wants. If Marlene was only interested in Ellie's brain mushrooms it makes no sense for her to disarm herself vs Joel. Joel knew Marlene was the only mother Ellie ever knew. I can somewhat understand all the other fireflies up to that point but this one just seemed like a completely separate thing right? Worse than the doctor for sure.
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Jul 6, 2020 00:59
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Ellie is a dumb kid in TLoU1 and there is no way you can sit a little girl down, no matter how mature they appear to be, and say “we have to kill you in order to save the planet.” That’s a completely loving insane thing for a wizened adult to try and wrap their minds around, try to imagine being a traumatized teenage girl? How is that a fair question? How is putting that on Ellie any less disrespectful than what Joel did? Giving Ellie the illusion of agency isn’t any better, Ellie is never given a fair circumstance and never really has agency at any point, regardless of whether or not she was conscious and available to consent. She clearly has intense PTSD and Survivor’s guilt, putting that question on her would have broken her mind.
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Jul 6, 2020 01:09
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Bust Rodd posted:Ellie is a dumb kid in TLoU1 and there is no way you can sit a little girl down, no matter how mature they appear to be, and say “we have to kill you in order to save the planet.” I agree completely. The fireflies were right to not give her the choice, Marlene's love for Ellie clearly put her in a difficult situation that she couldn't handle.
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Jul 6, 2020 01:12
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Bust Rodd posted:^^my point is that Abby doesn’t need any reason past “Joel killed my dad” to do what she did. That’s enough for MANY people. To forego killing the guy after a quick "this is for my father" and instead beat him to death with a golf club? To effectively torture someone to death? If you think that's, in context, normal, then fine, I guess. I found the revelation that she understood the circumstances to be quite an chilling one, to the extent that I took it to be a twist in the story at the time. e: Bust Rodd posted:Ellie is a dumb kid in TLoU1 and there is no way you can sit a little girl down, no matter how mature they appear to be, and say “we have to kill you in order to save the planet.” "It's cruel to allow a teenage girl to say her goodbyes, record her last words, make whatever peace she can, wrap up any loose ends she has, and allow her to willingly make a sacrifice that will ultimately bring humankind back from the brink. What's kind is having her make a perilous journey across the continental US and then not even wait for her to wake up after being injured during one of the many misfortunes that she's suffered in her commitment to make it to her destination before pulling her brain out". Perfectly Safe fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Jul 6, 2020 |
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Jul 6, 2020 01:15
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Perfectly Safe posted:To forego killing the guy after a quick "this is for my father" and instead beat him to death with a golf club? To effectively torture someone to death? In fact, Ellie would have never actually seen Joel get murdered if Abby hadn't decided to luxuriate in the act of beating him to death instead of just shooting him in the head and bugging out. The insane amount of cruelty Abby displays in that scene is one of the reason Ellie goes so hard after her in Seattle and Santa Barbara; the latter probably wouldn't have happened if Ellie didn't have mega-PTSD from seeing her adoptive father beaten to death in front of her. Fallen Hamprince fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Jul 6, 2020 |
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Jul 6, 2020 01:26
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